Article voiceover
I made six new points of contact just before I fired my gun. Elbows braced on the rock wall, haunch and feet on stone and soil the kinglet perched on my shoulder. The thing that gave me a shot was good connection. The thing that gives me any shot at all. Cheek to stock finger to trigger pin to primer the lake of my life as predator lapping at the shores of my life as prey we come together. The bullet finally touching the deer is a finale of reaching out to strangers to neighbors to ancestors to the next hill over the river there is a bridge connecting the banks of my fear to my desire like the geese stitching straight south from here to there. It seems like such a long way but they cinch together time and space so I can sit here, hungry, through one sunset cold as the boulder I’m trying to be and feel a little warmth from the fieldmouse sneaking into my pocket, stealing seeds. The deer fell and painted a white rock, red coloring a pale place, boldly laying against the hillside, wholly I dipped a finger in her death There’s this theory of novelty that says the only thing the universe really wants, is more. The only way for it to be whole is to be everything. Diversifying like divide and conquer but never a full division, a bifurcation, and not really a bi, but as many branches as we can bear, and not really conquer but meet, embrace, become. Branches reaching toward union. Each new branch closer to union than the one before until there’s no space left between. With a blade, I split her belly, but only to the breast I'm bound again with my shadow dog the way you only can be over a gut pile. Even now, days later, she's tight beside me the caul fat wrapped around us, too.
Thank you for connecting and allowing us to dip toes into the lake!